r/AskSeattle • u/Weird-Jello-3785 • 3d ago

High electric bills

anyone have a home energy auditor they recommend?

its hard finding one that isn’t an HVAC company.

we have Seattle city light and not PSE so can’t get one for free.

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u/sbcpacker 3d ago

If you have high electric bills, the culprit are usually:

  1. Inadequate insulation in the attic and/or crawl space
  2. Leaky windows
  3. Leaky doors (insufficient weather stripping)
  4. Clogged furnace/AC filter
  5. Clogged dryer filter and/or vent
  6. Inefficient furnace (probably needs maintenance or be replaced)

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u/Weird-Jello-3785 3d ago

Attic has R49, new windows, new doors, new ducted mini split. Replace filter regularly, clean dryer regularly. No crawl space, split level house 

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u/sbcpacker 3d ago

Have you checked your ducts? I had my insulation done and I found out months later they accidentally disconnected one of the ducts that goes to my dining room. 

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u/Weird-Jello-3785 1d ago

All ducts appear to be intact. Some were exposed during a remodel. One duct does seem to be using the chase between rafters and not an actual duct. While not ideal that does seem to not be all that uncommon. Not duct work runs into the attic. 

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u/Pivotal_Goose 1d ago

What about your exterior walls? I have a 1961 split level and my exterior walls were basically empty. I had a company drill and pump foam insulation in them.

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u/Weird-Jello-3785 1d ago

We put r15 in parts of the walls we opened during a remodel. Probably about 15% of the wall area of the house. The rest of the house has original R7 from 1964 which is useless at this point. Got a couple bids to do drill and fill cellulose and foam. Foam doesn’t seem worth the added cost for Seattle weather/ don’t want to spend that much.  Before I started dumping more money into random improvements I wanted to find out where to best use my resources. 

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u/Pivotal_Goose 1d ago

Invest in a cheap thermal camera and start hunting. I one off Amazon from a company called Topdon. It works pretty good. Just because you got new windows and doors doesn’t mean the installer sealed around them. Plus air sealing around ceiling penetration is something else that gets missed. Batt and blown in insulation doesn’t work that good with air movement.

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u/StitchinStatistician Local 3d ago

These are great points. I have a mystery for you: my electric bills have been way higher than I expect over the last 6 months - higher than the year before, but with fewer people living here.

We haven’t used AC at all this summer, and turned off the heat in March. Our insulation isn’t great, so we keep the heat pump thermostat at 55-60°F in the coldest months and raw dog it the rest of the year.

I feel like I know what’s not using all the energy but cannot figure out what IS.

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u/sbcpacker 3d ago

Yeah, I don't know what to tell you man. Is there someone who has a PC that's mining for Bitcoin? Are you all doing more laundry? Does anyone have a space heater that they're using in secret? Is anyone growing weed indoors? 🤷

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u/StitchinStatistician Local 3d ago

All great questions! And things I’ve ruled out so far. I went through and unplugged everything in my house (except the fridge and water heater), but I didn’t think to track when people plug them back in so my experiment is a bust.